


Iambic Pentameter

by soomin



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Artistic Liberties, Canon Relationships, Foreshadowing, Gen, Mostly focused on the tres horny boys though, Novelization, Retelling, Swearing, Taken from a post-listening point of view
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-18 00:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14842113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soomin/pseuds/soomin
Summary: A novelization of The Adventure Zone: Balance.





	Iambic Pentameter

**Author's Note:**

> This is a novelization of The Adventure Zone: Balance with a different spin on a few things. Please enjoy!

Taako looks great today.

“You look really nice today!” Magnus comments with a smile as Taako takes the seat directly in front of him. His friend shoots a toothy grin and winks at him.

“You’re not look half-bad yourself, my friend,” Taako returns, but right before he could comfortable lean back in his chair, he rushes forward to stop Magnus’s hand from tipping over a pitcher of syrup.

“Uh-uh,” Taako clicks his tongue as he dipped his finger in the pitcher to taste the syrup. “Blueberry syrup. You’re going to hate it.” He waves down the barmaid who was a few tables down from where they are cleaning up after guests. He explains to her that Magnus doesn’t like fruity syrups over his breakfast and inquires if they had any other syrups available. Magnus smiles wider.

For adventurers, six weeks is a lot of time to spend with people. Their lifestyle is constantly moving and dangerous. It is only natural that they’ll eventually reach some kind of threshold, and people part ways. He didn’t think that his two companions would stay with him this long, knowing how reckless he could be. After all, how loyal can a trio be when finding each other through Craig’s List? Magnus hums in contemplation as he tries to remember the other adventurers he has worked with through that list.

For whatever reason, the three of them have stuck together for more adventures than he could count. They aren’t the most functional of groups and are missing a few key players for a true adventuring troupe, but they aren’t half bad either. They’re a little bulkier than what their usual jobs ask for, and local lore and knowledge isn’t exactly their strong suit. However, at the end of the day, the job is done. And while it is never said out loud among themselves, Magnus has a feeling that they wouldn’t give up this group for another.

That being said, Magnus is still impressed with his friend’s deduction. He didn’t think six weeks were enough time for someone to figure out he didn’t sweet syrups over breakfast, especially considering this is the first time he actually had pancakes for any meal. He says this to Taako.

“Meh. I’ve known people with your pallet. Just a good guess I suppose,” Taako brushes off. “Now breakfast for dinner is a pretty bold move though. Hoping to swindle some more gold off our client with that sunshine demeanor?”

“Well, I do believe I have enough culinary knowledge, either through life experience or osmosis through you, that cider goes excellently with pancakes,” Magnus explains and gestures to the barman making his way with four glasses of cider and small pitcher of whatever syrup that Taako had ordered prior. Magnus found that he trusts Taako’s culinary choices far more than his own and gratuitously pours it over his pancakes. Taako raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. Magnus always likes that about Taako.

“I like you Taako,” Magnus comments.

Taako just smiles back at him and takes his drink.

The two of them sit in comfortable silence as dinner continues. Taako sips his drink while Magnus downs his fifth drink of the night. By the time Magnus is halfway through his sixth, Taako sighs.

“Where is he?”

Magnus places his drink down and frowns. It was a good question. Maybe he was in danger.

“What if he’s in danger?” Magnus asks.

Taako scoffs. “Look, we might be in a roughing-it kind of town, but Merle can more than handle himself. If you ask me, he’s probably right outside this bar handing out pamphlets about his religion or something.” Magnus smiles at the thought. However, regardless of what their third compatriot is doing, he is rather late.  Either Merle is going to come in soon, or Magnus will be too far under to look any bit threatening to their contact.

But before the two of them could even think about standing up to go searching, two dwarves walk in the bar. Both glided through the bar with confidence, but Magnus knew better than to assume they are of the same character. The dwarf on the left is Merle who’s body language was relaxed and open to his companions. Merle made wide gestures as he speaks, which to Magnus, made it seem like his words bigger than the world around him. The dwarf on the right is the one that drew Magnus’s attention.

His posture is straight and tall, making himself look bigger than half the patrons of the bar. He takes heavy steps and glides across the tavern, listening to Merle with half an ear and observing everyone with one eye. Magnus knows from experience that this dwarf was a king of some sort. He swears he could smell fire.

“Sure that’s not coming from you hot stuff?” Taako asks, his words joking but his tone worried.

“I’m fine,” Magnus says.

“I know you are,” Taako replies, his eyes not laying off of Magnus.

“Guys! Guess who our next employer is? You’re not going to guess it! It’s my cousin, good ol’ Gundam Rocksneaker.”  

The dwarf next to him coughs. “It’s actually Gundren Rockseeker and-“

“I thought that the ad was coming from Steve Smith?” Magnus asks. However, the dwarf shakes his head and takes his seat across from Taako, apparently gauging that he’s the most sane of the three. Taako just gives a small wave and a deranged smile.

“We’re all mad here,” Taako comments, and Gundren reaches for a pitcher.  

“Drinks!” Merle cheers as he starts to inhale them. The tales of dwarves and their ability to drink are certainly not as tall as Magnus as Magas was lead to believe, and he could only watch in awe as pitchers refilled in quick succession. He didn’t know who to be more impressed by, the dwarves or the wait staff.

At some point, Magnus got it in his head that he could probably match them as well. Besides, it’s just cider! Magnus made it a point to ignore Taako’s indulgent shake of his head when he relayed his thoughts to him. Sometime during the ninth, or maybe it was the eleventh (whatever number comes after too many), Magnus began wondering when Merle’s twin decided to drop by.

Beside him Taako scoffs as if he could not believe that this is his life right now. He might have said that aloud, but to be honest, Magnus couldn’t really tell his own thoughts from what he is saying out loud. Regardless, there is one thing that intoxication couldn’t really affect, and that is the fact that he is fluent in Taako language.

“Is that so?” Taako asks with his eyes. Or maybe voice. That’s just how fluent Magnus is. Taako’s eyes roll but with a playful glee.

“Will you make that stew the last time we got fucked up?” Magnus asks. Taako just scoffs and turns his head to face the other two intoxicated members of the party. Of course he would, Magnus translates.

“Thanks Taako,” Magnus smiles.

“So, do you guys accept?” Gundren suddenly asks. Taako and Magnus look back at their employer. Or at least, Taako is. There are approximately five Gundrens floating around, so Magnus focuses his eyes at the one that wasn’t spinning around.

“Uh, was there a dealing going on that I wasn’t aware about?” Taako asks.

Magnus frowns. He is quite sure that there were nothing sounding like words in the last hours or so. Most of the noise came from Merle and Gundren who were just snorting and grunting at each other. Maybe Gundren is asking if they wanted more appetizers?

“French fried taters,” Magnus supplies. Gundren shakes his head and begins making more noises at Merle who nods as if Gundren was talking to him.

“For one, I’m glad we’re going to go look for rocks,” Merle cheers and pours another drink for himself. “The last mission was such a pain in the ass, isn’t that right guys?” Taako scrunches up his eyebrows and looks between the dwarves to discern a secret message that was apparently being transmitted.

“Uh, little man, do you mind translating whatever your cousin was apparently saying for the last hour or so? Or maybe half hour? I wasn’t sure what were words and just mumblings of a drunk man,” Taako requests, tapping his fingers along the table. Magnus knows that meant that Taako is annoyed at something.

“Taako’s annoyed,” Magnus slurs as he reached for his next drink. Merle looks over to Magnus, and then makes a noise of understanding and sits straighter in his chair.

“Oh, Ol’ Gundren was saying that this would be the last job we’ll ever need to take, but not in the ‘we’ll die’ sort of way. Apparently there’s this treasure or something locked away, and he’s willing to pay rather handsomely for us getting it,” Merle explains. “He says that this is a top secret mission, but he knows that the religion business hasn’t been that good for his old cousin, which is why he’s trusting it with us!”

“Oh, yes, I forgot you’re a cleric,” Taako jabs.

Merle doesn’t rise up to the bait, either too intoxicated to hear or too used to the comment to think of a witty response. “But, before we can get any more information about this do-hicky of his, he wants to audition us.”

“Good planning,” Taako comments and Magnus nods with him. They’ve always get the job done, but the how is always quite questionable.

“If I’m allowed to finish,” Merle warns, swinging his glass menacingly. “We’re taking a supply wagon from here, Neverwinter, to this town called Phandalin, if any of you guys heard of it.”

“The old mining town?” Magnus gurgles out.

“And here you were telling me that you weren’t the brightest bulb in the shed,” Taako jokes.

“History isn’t my strong suit, but people are,” Magnus explains. “Someone from my last adventure group was from there. They were a mining town for magical ores. They were a pretty rich town, but a wave of Orcs was sweeping that area all last year. It was absolute mayhem, but last I heard of them, they were doing well on the reconstruction.”

“Is the vein still there?” Merle asks.

Magnus racks his brain for the answer and shakes his head. “From what Bob told me, their economy isn’t like that anymore. It’s like,” Magnus searches for the word. It’s a shit show, Bob had told him. “shitty.”

“And why are we going to Phandalin?” Taako asks. Gundren replies in more grunts and snorts, to which Taako visibly reclines. When the sounds stop, Magnus and Taako looked over to their friend who nods sympathetically.

“My cousin has a strong interest in the town and is one of the people helping rebuild. The trip is a about two or three day by wagon,” Merle explains.

Magnus thought that it’s simple enough. However, if the trip is that long, why did he need protection? This is hardly some kind of test.

“Is he expecting trouble?” Magnus asks.

Gundren shakes his head. Taako takes in the information carefully and hums as he processes the thought. Magnus doesn’t see anything too suspicious for the time being. If anything, it seems like a pretty easy gig from the last one, and Magnus would welcome any kind of relaxation, even in the form of another adventure.

“And the pay?” Taako asks.

Gundren holds up ten fingers and then points at the three of them. 

“On arrival or prior?” Taako negotiates. Gundren brings up the bag of what was probably the gold pieces and holds them just out of Taako’s reach. The elf studies the dwarf before glancing at his other two companions.

“Team huddle guys!” Taako calls. Merle shrugs and walks over to the other side of the table. Magnus, after realizing that Taako was calling for a “Team Huddle” and not a “Turtle Hurdle”, slowly turns his back to Gundren and leans over. Taako lowers himself to Merle’s height and whispers, “I think this is a pretty good gig. What do you guys think? It seems simple enough.”

“It’s kind of weird,” Magnus comments, “but maybe he’s just looking to make sure we don’t stir up too much trouble?”

“Well I hope he likes trouble!” Merle laughs as he punches his open fist

“No, Merle, he doesn’t want trouble. That’s why he’s hiring us,” Taako explains.

Merele glances up and picks at his ears. “Ah. Not the best employee.”

“I’ve noticed,” Taako deadpans, but continues, “but if this guy is giving us ten gold each as a down payment, that must mean he has a few others on the back burner. We’re going to really knock this one out of the park if we want those ‘unlimited riches’ or whatever he was talking about.”

“Right,” Merle and Magnus agree and did their best for a scout’s honor. Taako mirrors the gestured and calls for a break.

Takko faces back to the dwarf and offers his hand. “Mr. Gundren ‘Steve Smith’ Rockseeker, you got yourself a deal.”

The next day, Gundren, who in fact did know how to speak Common, procures a wagon and oxen filled with supplies. Magnus, the only one with any kind of vehicle proficiency, is chosen to drive the wagon while Merle and Taako take turns with the surveillance and navigation. The weather is perfect for this kind of mission. No storms, diseases, or bears in sight. If Magnus was a superstitious man, he might have suspected something dire happening. However, for now, he just appreciates the good day.

“It’s a good day today,” Magnus comments.

“Yup! No day like the present though,” Merle agrees as he held the map in front of him. A comfortable silence falls between them. It’s what he liked about Merle. You didn’t need to do much to get on his good side, and you have to work hard to get on his bad side. So it took Magnus by surprise when Merle asks, “So what do you think about the jerk, Barry Bluejeans?”

“What?”

“You know? That fighter Gundren got with him? Like, we’re the guys he hired to get this treasure! Shouldn’t we, you know, be up there protecting him too?” Merle reasons.

“Well, our job it to be protecting the supplies so,”

“And that’s another thing! Why are we protecting the supplies? If Gundren wants some more hired help, should Bluejeans be the one collecting supplies? Why does Bluejeans get to hang out with Gunren the whole time?”

Magnus diesn’t know how to answer that. While Merle takes it that Bluejeans was purposely trying to blow them off, the observations are keen. It is only a two day trip, and if Gundren doesn’t expect trouble, well, why did they leave a half a day ahead? There is strategy to leave with distance in between so that if one wagon is captured, the other is not damaged as well. However, if nothing is supposed to happen, then why the precaution?

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Magnus finally answers. Merle sighs and leaves it at that.

“Sorry,” Magnus says.

“Nah, it’s fine. You get to be as old as me, and you tend to find bitterness in everything. But the trick is to just let it come out and not bottle it in, you get me?” Merle explains and leans back. Already his annoyance is gone. Magnus smiles. Merle is a simple person, and while he is sometimes not the most coherent, it is nice to have people to have it figured out around him.

“How’s it going out here boys?” Taako asks as he emerges from the wagon onto the driving cart.

“Pretty good. Did you figure out just what and how much we’re shipping off?” Magnus asks.

“Just some general store supplies: armor, blasting caps, powder kegs. The usual for supplying an army. There are three sets of stuff set aside that I’m guessing is for us. You can look through it when we camp for the night,” Taako explains

“Wait, is there no food?” Magnus asks in a worried tone.

“No, ther-“

“Are we going to have to eat the oxen?”

Taako swats Magnus over the head for that comment. “No, you dingus! We’re not going to eat the oxen! Unless you and Merle want to lug this cart around for the day, we kind of need those things. Oh, and I guess you might want to know, Ruby is adjusting well to life on the roads.”

Magnus smiles at the update. He likes dogs. He was so delighted to see that Gundren had left his dog with him. Even though Taako and Merle agreed that this was the ugliest dog on this planet and weren’t really sure which end was the butt and which was the head, Magnus fell in love. He as hoping that it was a direhound, but a small bulldog is pretty cute too.

“I want a dog,” Magnus comments offhandedly. He sees Taako and Merle look at each other before they shrug. It is a thought that they are going to keep in mind.

The journey was as uneventful as Gundren claimed from the night before. However, that did nothing to calm everyone’s nerves. Even though Magnus finds himself believing less and less about his earlier suspicious of something happening in the background, Merle continues studying his cantrips and spells. Despite being his cousin, Merle doesn’t completely trust his cousin. He had started rambling about something that how well timed this all was, and how that Bluejeans guy wasn’t onto par with what Merle thought a good person would be. There is just something about him that struck Merle as odd.

However, a day and a half passed, and nothing had happened. Well, bad road conditions happened, but that was the least of what they thought could happen. Taako leans over to the side of the cart and begins to fake-gag onto the road. As Merle joins him in the hijinks, Magnus keeps a steady eye on the road. He figures this might be the case during the latter half of their journey, as the town is still recovering. He thinks to himself that if the three of them have some downtime after this, he might help the townsfolk try to restore this road to at least useable conditions.

At some point, the fake gaging became real gagging. Taako and Merle eventually retire to the wagon to try and not puke up everywhere along the way, which made Magus both in charge of driving and navigating. The town is just along the path though, so it is not too much of a struggle for him. Judging from the map, they should be close though. He tries squinting to see if the town is in sight before he quickly throws the wagon behind some trees.

“Are we there yet?” Merle asks, his voice weak. Magnus looks back and responds with a lowered voice.

“Guys, there are people ahead, and their horses are dead. I’m going to stop the wagon and investigate.”

“Wait, what?”

“Magnus! What did I say about rushing in?”

Magnus didn’t listen and instead motions for his friends to come up and prepare to fight. Shadows were moving in the woods. Magnus watches them move around as they all plan their next moves.

“Are we sure these guys are the bad guys?” Taako asks, his voice nervous.

“Well, they’re not waving weapons around and saying ‘Welcome!’”

“I can’t see for shit eagle eyes,” Taako retorts.

“Behind us! There’s two rushing toward us!” Magnus announces and draws his sword.

“I cast Sacred Fire!” Merle yells as an aura of yellow energy surrounds his right hand and launches a fireball at the nearest attacker. While the spell isn’t enough to kill, it was enough to stun and stop the charge. His friend, the second gerblin, gives his friend only a second to look back before realizing that this wasn’t the best of plans.

“Gerblins,” Magnus observes.

“Ray of Frost!” Taako yells as bolts of white light collects near his wand and then explodes into one great bolt of energy fires towards the first gerblin again. The creature, who was previously screaming from the burning, immediately freezes into solid ice. The block begins to slowly tipped forward, and in a great din, broke off into a thousand pieces.

“First blood baby,” Taako cheers and gives Merle a high-five.

“Nice one,” Magnus also gives Taako a high-five. Grabbing his sword, he yells to his companions, “Now, should I jump down and get the second guy and show you what a real fighter can do?”

“Show us what you got big boy,” Taako smirks and watches as Magnus grabs his battle axe with two hands and leaps.

“Wait! You’re going to jump there?” Taako yells.

Magnus brings the axe above his head and he yells as if this was his first fight again. The gerblin stares at Magnus his yellow eyes in fear. He stands frozen, and Magnus has only pity and regret that he had chosen Magnus as his opponent.

The axe falls down, and the gerblin is split in half. Taako whistles in appreciation. From beyond the carnage, someone was cheering. Merle tugs on Magnus’s clothes to try and get him to join in with the cheering. Magnus raises an eye when he realizes that the cheering was for the other team.

“Wait, I thought there were only two gerblins out there. Why are there – why are there three over there OH JESUS JERRY NO!” another gerblin yells from within the shades of the trees. However, before they could react, a flaming arrow is shot from the source of the voice towards Taako.

“Get down!” Merle yells, but Takko shrugs. He stands stills as the arrow comes towards him, and smiles as the arrow makes contact but bounces off of him.

“My AC is 12 motherfucker,” Takko laughs. Magnus could only smile in response to his friend’s dramatics.

“Yeah, but the canvas doesn’t have shit!” Merle announces and jumps out of the wagon as the arrow lands onto the wooden surface and sets aflame everything around it. Taako follows suit, but Magnus could only scream and panic as he tries to find something to help douse the fire. He glances back at the gerblin who seemed smug as if this was his plan the entire time; something Magnus doubts. He begins to make a cunning escape for what he seems to believe to be a cunning plan.

“Okay guys, this doesn’t look too bad,” Merle tries to placate. Magnus, upon hearing those words, looks up and over to Merle. The dwarf had a calming smile and a hand on Magnus’s back. He gestured over the fire which looked significantly smaller than Magnus must have imagined it being. Magnus glances over to Taako, who looked a bit ashamed at what happened, and assessed to make sure he was okay. Taako sheepishly smiled back.

“I- I think I have this covered guys,” Magnus breaths, his initial panic finally leaving him. Instead of randomly covering the wagon in dirt, Magnus analyzes the flames to find the right places to douse the fire. If he does it quickly, there should be minimal damage provided that the cause of the problem is dealt with first. “You guys handle him.”  

Merle shows him a thumb up and starts his move towards the enemy. Taako stays back behind, though Magnus is unsure if it is because he believes in Merle or if it is because he doesn’t. As Magnus collects clumps of dirt to place over the flames, he could hear Taako mutter, “Is he really going to throw that hand axe into a forest he can barely see-“

“AH!”

“Oh, well never mind,” Taako hums, obviously impressed by the action. He turns around to face Magnus and makes a small noise. “Oh yeah, I forgot about this.” And waves his wand to make the flames disappear. Magnus stares at Taako, a bit amazed at both how casually and how forgetful his very powerful wizard friend can be.

Magnus then smiles. He made some very good friends this time.

“Hey,” Magnus says and Taako brushes himself off after jumping from the wagon. “Wanna go search these fools?” Taako smiles.

“Of course.”

From the bodies, they were able to obtain a small collection of coins that added to a total of 20 gold. Magnus wasn’t the best at math, but he knew from experience that unless the number was 30, 60, or 90, numbers ending in zeros were not good.

“I’ll hold onto the money, I think,” Magnus starts. His hand was tightly gripping the coin purse. As probably the most lawful of the trio, he’d probably be the most fair with it.

“No, I think I will,” Taako argues, not letting go of the bag of coins as well. Magnus eyes his friend.

“You can always trust a cleric,” Merle intervenes, trying to pull the bag from under them.

“Well, I think the cleric and I did most of the work so-“

“Okay, what about this?” Taako sighs. “We each get six pieces, and we’ll pool the rest later.” Magnus ponders on this and nods. It seemed fair enough. However, he smiles back says, “but if we die, we need to put five pieces into the pile.” Taako looks at him strangely.

“Honey, I don’t plan on doing that.” Magnus frowns.

Taako, for what Magnus knew, was an adventurer. The job description kind of says that you’re required to keep your life on the line. Magnus could only hope that Taako didn’t have someone waiting for him after all of this was over. Magnus knew what it meant to have someone to live for. Now, all he knew what it was like to live for someone.

“Well, that was a pretty good fight, if I do say so myself. Now can we go check to make sure my cousin and that asshole Barry is okay?” Merle pleads as he runs towards the wagon wreckage. Taako shrugs and follows suite. Magnus glances back at the third gerblin’s location and runs over to his body. Merle’s hand axe had landed neatly between the gerblin’s eyes, and though Magnus had become accustomed to this violence, he couldn’t help but sigh. He was a fighter, but he knew that he was no true-born killer. Grabbing his foe’s short bow and retrieving the hand axe, Magnus says a small prayer to whatever god that was listening and goes off to rejoin his friends.

“Always thorough, aren’t you Magnus?” Merle comments as Magnus comes closer to the scene. Magnus only offered a goofy smile and hands his friend his hand axe back. Looking back at Taako who was investigating the scene closely, Magnus mirrored his friend’s actions and gasps.

“The dogs are dead!” Magnus begins screaming. Taako looks up at the fighter with a quite frankly scared expression and then shakes his head.

“No you ding dong! Are you telling me you could see this mess a bajillion miles away, but when you’re close up all that eagle vision is just used up?” Taako sighs and rubs his face. Merle makes some kind of scolding noise at Magnus too, but Magnus knows that when he starts copying Taako, that’s just code that he’s as clueless as he is. Magnus shrugs. As hard as Taako can be sometimes on them, he knows that it’s in good humor. Magnus offers a smile to try and placate his friend and encourage him to explain to him and Merle what he’s supposed to be seeing.

“Okay, so the horses are dead as shit, but they’re still warm. That probably means that this didn’t happen too long ago.” Taako begins and points to a satchel next to his boots. “I was doing some digging, and I found this map that I’m pretty sure Gundren had last night. That means that these horses probably do belong to our employer. Except, I don’t think this is a map to Phandalin to Neverwinter.”

“Well, that would be kind of a stupid map, to be honest,” Magnus offers. He looks at the map from over Taako’s shoulder. It was definitely an older map with markings that suggest that they’re newer. “It looks like a map of some kind of mine.”

Merle’s makes a humming noise at that comment. Magnus raises an eye.

“Now look, I’m not one to pull bad blood between family, but I’ve had my suspicions about Gundren for a while now. I might not be the smartest dwarf on the block, but even I know that when a cousin comes by asking for favors, it usually doesn’t mean anything good.” Merle explains and huffs. Magnus hums in acknowledgement.

He didn’t like things like betrayal. It was one thing to lie, but to break someone’s trust is a capital offence in Magnus’s books. He told his friends as much who nodded in agreement. He sighed.

“Well, what are we going to do? It’s not like there are any clues we can go off on,” Magnus sighs. Taako swiftly turns his head and gives him a look that makes Magnus question what he just said.

“Do you – do you just have like far-vision or something? There’s this pattern in the dirt that probably means that Gundren and his bodyguard got dragged somewhere. We should follow that and see where it leads.” Magnus raises his hand.

“Yes Magnus?” Taako asked in an exasperated voice.

“Now I’m not an intelligent man, but we do have a cart packed to the brim with goods sitting here. Should we just walk away from that cart?” Magnus asks, uncomfortable with the fact that they’re just abandoning their duty in favor for something else. Taako glances back at their wagon and thinks.

“Okay,” Taako takes a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what. Magnus, you stay with the cart since you can see jack shit close by but also can deal some pretty heavy damage. With my superior perceptions, I’ll go and investigate the brush.”

“You know, we can just hide the wagon in the brush,” Merle suggests. Taako makes a high-pitched sound the signaled his displeasure.

“No, that sounds like quite the production. I like my plan better.”

“Look, you might not be as old as me, but take it from a skilled adventurer and hear that when a party splits up, it usually means for good,” Merle reasons, his arms crossed to make it look as if he is unwilling to move on this position. Taako rolls his eyes but doesn’t make an argument. Magnus glances back at the cart.

“You know, it wouldn’t be hard to hide. Give me like three minutes, and we can go explore the cave together, sounds good?” Magnus offers. Taako, who always enjoy getting out of work, smiles at the idea and agrees. Merle smiles at Magnus and he smiles back. However, when he turns to retrieve the wagon and hide it from sight from the road, his mind wanders back to the dead horses and the hidden map.

Magnus likes Taako and Merle. He doesn’t like Gundren a whole bunch right now. As he moves the wagon closer to the mouth of the cave, Magnus knows whose side he’s on.

* * *

 

The cave was certainly unlike anything they have ever seen before. It was a beautiful natural sight that could only exist isolated from humanity. Magnus felt his heart stop at the scene before him. His only regret was that the landscape was tarnished as Gundren’s trail continued further down the cave. Regardless, the place was very nice.

“This is nice,” Magnus comments. Merle and Taako make an agreeing noise and slowly take steps in front of Magnus. From their confident steps into the darkness, Magnus belatedly remembered that his friends were in fact not human.

“Uh guys?” Magnus called out.

“What? Not rushing in this time?” Taako teases, and Merle is about to comment when he comes to the opposite realization Magnus had.

“Shit, you’re human!” Merle realizes as he slapped his face. Taako’s smile drops and then it returns in a more sheepish form. Merle shrugs.

His friends are magical beings and surrounded themselves for so long in this essence. He imagines that someone so banal as he must go under their radar for a while.

“You’re not just ordinary though. You’re extra-ordinary!” Magnus’s breath caught in his throat. It had been a while since he heard her voice rather than her screams. He looked behind him expecting to see her, but his heart fell when all he saw was the darkness behind him. He then frowned in disappointment. He should know better to get his hopes up for something like that. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the flames licking greedily at the wreckage of him home. He could smell smoke and ash. And in the distance, he could hear the sounds of a particularly distressed elf ranting at him?

“Dude, you gotta tell us these things. You could have fallen off a cliff, and we would have laughed our asses off because we would have thought you were just being an idiot or something. But it wouldn’t really be funny because you were actually blind the entire time,” Taako ranted as he pulled out his spell cards for something that would help this situation. Takko tended to rant when he was emotional, even though his words pretended to be cold. Magnus knew his friend long enough to know better, and he was glad for it.

Magnus was no fool to believe he was as mentally strong as he was physically. It was a main reason his previous adventure tropes separated. His head wasn’t always in the game, and while it has never costed them anything dire, it was too much of a risk to take. However, these two were different. For the first time in a long while, he had something he wanted to protect and keep close again. And hell was he going to let that escape him.

“Wait! I think I have Light!” Merle exclaimed as he pulls out his spell cards.

“I do have a candle though,” Magnus offers.

“Uh-uh, unless you want us to smell like lavender when we go find Gundren, we’re going to magic this shit. Do you guys see a stick or something so we can give the man a torch or something?”

“Wait, Magnus, is your axe one-handed or two-handed?” Merle asked.

Magnus considers the questions. “It’s either - very versatile.”

“Okay, so if we give you a torch, you could still use your weapon?” Taako stares at Merle who seemed to be thinking ahead for the first time.

“You could also just cast Light on my axe,” Magnus suggests. Merle looks at Taako as if to ask if that was possible. Taako hums.

“That might look bitchin’” Taako comments.

“Alright. Let’s go with the bitchin’ effect of casting Light on your axe,” Merle smiles and focus his energy into his palm. A ball of light floats away from his hand and lands delicately onto the weapon. Magnus brings a hand to it, expecting heat but none emits from it. A feeling of relief spreads over him.

“So it says I can turn it off if I clap or stop believing,” Merle smiled back at them. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m a man of strong faith.” Magnus rolled his eyes fondly and walked up closer to them.

“I’ll lead the way,” Magnus said.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Taako smiled and followed closely behind him.

The cave was like any other cave they have walked through. The stream made the path slippery, and besides the trail Gundren made, there were signs that anyone resided here. The path began to veer slightly to the right to an entrance of another tunnel, this one looking more artificially made than the rest of the cavern. As Magnus waved his axe to peer through the darkness, Merle holds his friend back.

“I hear chains,” Merle explains.

“Are they happy chains or scary chains?” Magnus asked.

“Magic can do a lot, but one of them is definitely not imbue them with emotions,” Taako retorts. “But I hear them too. They’re coming from the right of the entrance.”

“I mean, can you tell are the chains large or would they be for a human?”

Merle closes his eyes. “Not sure from here, but there aren’t too many either. Now before we make any rash choices about this-“

Magnus goes in.

“You fool! Wait for us!” Merle yells, but only one pair of footsteps was trailing behind him. Magnus knew in his heart that Taako was making some kind of remark, but he couldn’t bring himself to care truly. Thinking was more of Taako’s game; Magnus was a man of action. If there was a possibility that Gundren was there, he would jump on the first chance.

A wave of bats begins to poor out from the sound. As Magnus ducks from the swarm, he swings his axe to better see the space around him. It was a decent sized cavern for nothing to be in here besides something that was chained up. As the swarm of bats begin to leave the cavern, Mangus turns to see three wolves chained up to the cave walls.

One opens its blood red eyes at him.

“Kill the light. Kill the light. Kill the light,” Magnus begins chanting to Merle. Merle making a judgmental look at the fighter.

“They’re chained up. What are they going to do?” Merle observes and holds his friend’s arm. Magnus looks at Merle with an incredulous look but calms nonetheless. Magnus takes a deep breath and looks back at the wolves. They didn’t look angry at them at least, and if the prior noise didn’t do anything to stun them, then they shouldn’t be too worried, right?

“We shouldn’t be worried, right?” Magnus asks.

“Nah, they’re actually kind of cute, you know?” Merle comments. Magnus takes another breath. From the way Merle was talking about them, they sound like dogs. Magnus likes dogs. He can do this.

He gives them a glance and the wolves don’t seem particularly dangerous. In fact they look like they just woke up. One gives a big yawn. A yawn that showed all of their very sharp teeth but a yawn nonetheless.

“See, not so bad, right?” Merle asks. Magnus looks over to his friend with a sheepish smile.

“You know, I- I used to be a farmer.”

“Is that right? You used to handle animals?”

“Kind of?”

“So was I in my youth,” Merle tells him with a wink. “And look at which one of us was scared of these fluffy guys.”

Magnus smiles. “Well fuck you.”

He walks over to the dogs with his chest puffed up, his steps solid, and a smile adorned on his face. Taako always says that it was his smile is the most dangerous looking part of him. He remembers a small dog from all those years ago. He remembers sticks and stones and whines and yelps. He remembers scrapes and bruises and tears and kisses. Magnus knows animals, and they can smell fear. He takes another step forward.

However, apparently, they can smell fear really well because as Magnus walks over to them, they begin growling at him.

“Uh, Magnus, you sure you should be that close to those, you know, feral dogs?” Merle asks. Magnus suddenly thinks that this isn’t a good idea.

“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Magnus announces, and pauses. This really isn’t a good idea. He takes a good look around the room and observes that it’s a dead end. He can see a chimney going straight up into the roof, but none of them are that agile to be able to climb that thing. He looks back at the wolves who seem to have now risen and begin approaching him slowly.

He looks back at Merle who seems ready to attack at Magnus’s command. He looks further back at Taako who, while leaning back against the cave wall, is watching carefully with one eye, his wand peaking from his sleeve. His frown set.

“I’m still chilling out here, if anyone’s curious,” he calls out, but doesn’t change his expression.

Magnus looks back at Merle and nods at him. They scurry their way back, the wolves managing a few lunges but not quite reaching with the chains around their necks. Taako raises an eyebrow but doesn’t immediately speak.

“It doesn’t seem worth it. Let’s keep going,” Magnus explains. Taako shrugs and his wand disappears.

“Excelent, well, I trust your judgement,” he agrees and walks further down the path as if the whole ordeal had never happened.

Magnus shrugs as well. He was still getting used to not being berated for his stupid ideas. It was a strange feeling, but it was nice. However, before he could follow, he felt a hand on his pants.

“Hey, you know, what you did back there – that was really smart of you.” Merle compliments.

“What? You mean getting away from the wolves?” Magnus asks. “Anyone would have done it.”

Merle shakes his head. Magnus rolls his eyes playfully. “If this is another message from you god, I think I’m going to-“

“Sure anyone could have done it, but very few people like you would have,” Merle finishes.

Magnus pauses. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been around for a while. I’ve seen fighters like you. I mean, look at me, I’m a cleric! I’ve seen my fair share,” Merle explains. “Always big guys wanting to prove that they got the bite to match the bark. I knew a guy that would have killed those wolves just to do it.

“But not you. You didn’t do it because you didn’t see the need to. There wasn’t any big prize and they weren’t doing any harm. You know, sometimes in this adventuring business, people forget that at the end of the day, they’re human too. They hang their soul at the dungeon and forget to pick them up when they come out of it,” Merle explains and sighs as if shaking off a memory.

“Thanks Magnus,” Merle finishes.

“For what?”

“For remembering to pick up your soul at the end of the day. Adventuring Rule #4,” Merle smiles and runs after Taako. Magnus blinks and follows after. Merle has always been a little weird.

“Merle, you’re kind of weird,” Magnus smiles.

As the three of them travel down the cave, the ambient light of the environment begins to wane and the cave gets darker and darker. Magnus’s axe is brought further and further away from Magnus in order to stretch its range. At the third sheer drop Magnus almost fell down in, Taako and Merle insisted that Magnus watched the back.

At the fork, the three of them stop. While the other path is blocked by an old cave-in, the unblocked passage reveals an overpass to a second story of the cave connected by two entrances. Taako points to one of the entrances.

“You said that the wolves’ den had a chimney, right?” Magnus nods. “That must have been where it led.” Taako peers through the new cavern, begins calling out to someone in a language Magnus doesn’t immediately understand.

“What are you doing?” he whispers.

“Elvish. You know, for the underground elves?” Taako smiles. When someone responds with an confused grunt, Taako calls again in the same language.

“No!” Magnus shushes. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Hmm. Probably a Gerblin then,” Taako contemplates and walks out confidently as he begins speaking in another language.

“Is that Gerblin?” Merle asks.

“A result of one of my many, many talents,” Taako explains and waves to poor Gerblin down. The two of them begin talking, but Magnus follows none of it. He was never really involved in negotiations and trusts Taako enough to handle this part. However, he keeps his eyes about. Something about this place doesn’t sit right with Magnus. There’s something in here that’s drawing him in.

Magnus was not a man of faith, but he does believe that it has a tendency to drag him along regardless. He stays lost in his thoughts and he racks his brain for why this place seems to be calling that he almost forgot that negotiations are happening in the first place.

“Go ask the Gerblin cut in half how dangerous we are!” Merle suddenly yells, obviously impatient with the lack of action. Magnus tries to silences him, and Taako quickly tries to repair the damage. However, it doesn’t seem to go well as the Gerblin quickly changes gears and tries to call out his friends.

Magnus takes it as his cue.

As noise begins to build in a nearby tunnel, Magnus readies his axe and nods over to his companions that he’ll hold the fort here. Merle casts a beautiful shield around him as added protection, but doesn’t see the arrow aimed towards him as a result.

“Merle!” The dwarf doesn’t have a second to even acknowledge him as the arrow lands directly into Merle’s arm. He grunts but gets up quickly. Magnus takes a step towards him, but Merle raises his hand to top him.

“I’m fine! Just get that bastard!” Merle commands as he pulls out the arrow and quickly bandages the wound.

“I’m casting ray of frost on that fool.” Taako announces as raises his hand. Wind collect near his palm as it focuses into a bright sphere of white light. The scene is silent as the sphere blasts out into a beam and hits its target directly.

Magnus cheers as the hit lands, but his joy doesn’t last for long. He looks into the long hallways and hears something creaking and finally breaking and rushing right towards him.

“Tits,” Magnus curses. He surveys the scene and bites his lip. He looks at the damaged gerblin and shoots it before it could do anymore damage to his friends. As they cheer for his victory, and Merle also shouting that Magnus was stealing his kills, he places a finger over his lips as they all listen for the sounds of rushing water.

“I think our best bet is to climb up this overpass,” Magnus explains, and the two of them nod. The three of them rush over to the cliff. Taako, though initially dubious of his ability, climbs up the fastest. However, Merle, whose focus is divided between his wound and the rushing water, loses his footing and falls. Magnus watches this scene and tries to help his friend up.

“Merle! You’re pretty injured. Shouldn’t you know, do something about that?” Taako asks, as he rolls his eyes but then looks towards the back hallway.

“Oh yeah. Here, let me cast-“ Just then a wave of water crashes in. Magnus, sensing the danger, rushes in front of Merle and tried to protect him from the wave. At the very least, however, Magnus somehow manages to keep holding onto the ledge for their own dear life.

Magnus swears he hears Taako giggle.

“Are you laughing at us?!” Magnus asks.

“No, no, it’s just, you know, I’m up here with the athletic ability of like, a baby. And you two are down there, and I’m just saying that you guys better think twice before judging my workout regime, okay?”

Magnus is about to retort when another crash of water washes over them and throws them down the cavern.

“I’m fine, in case you’re wondering,” Taako yells back.

“Are you okay Taako?” Merle asks, his voice strained and annoyed.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about Taako- oh shit.” Magnus hears before a series of grunts that Magnus faintly recognizes as Gerblin. The conversation continues for some time before there is a sound of disgust, which is pretty good for Magnus to pick up on, and then Taako’s voice is then heard again.

“The things I do for you people,” Taako yells out. Magnus smiles as the water drains and he picks himself up. He reminds himself that there are also countless of things he would do for his friends.

And he wouldn’t regret a single one.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: The best part of this project is that I don’t have to come up with chapter names.


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